The Sidama Concern

 

By Seyoum Hameso

As it happened in the seventies and the eighties, the western media is once again focusing in a disaster situation in Ethiopia. Only a few months into the new millennium, a potentially devastating event is unfolding. While international attention is useful in leading to temporary relief measures, it fails to address the fundamental problems that cause the recurrence of such emergencies.

In this brief article, I ask if all is gloom and doom imposed by nature or if the hands of people gave added impetus for destruction. In other words, are the people of that area destined to doom and stories of doom or is it something that can be solved, given the human will?

The assumption here is that while it is easy to blame nature (for one it dos not know how to enter into dispute), the problem at hand is as much man-made. The readily available hands for implication are of those who are in a position to do some something, or those who can decide and devise social, political and economic policies that bedevil the lives of ordinary people.

It should be clear from the outset that drought and other natural calamities do strike in any part of the world. It is the policy of the governments that lessens their impacts. Drought does not translate itself directly to famine if the people have enough reserves, or if distribution of resources is fair. But that is not the case with the consecutive Ethiopian regimes who care for something other than the peoples.

One would argue that these regimes brought famine conditions to the population groups. For example, Menelik was preoccupied with his expansionary war to the south when a Great Famine struck in 1896. According to imperial chronicles, the situation was so bad that, in these days, some form of cannibalism was practised. A little over a half a century, Haile Selassie had a badly reported fight in his hands with Ogaden and Eritrea when nearly a million people perished in 1973-74. The regime that was supported by the West did crumble by the combination of Western camera exposure and overbearing local dissent. The places that famine struck hard, including Wollo and Tigray were not the regime’s favourite areas, as they were complicated by traditional feudal power rivalries. Unhealthy distribution of resources, mainly land and destructive exploitation of nature and people led to a situation where peasant farmers were in no position to resist any drought condition. In other words, they lost their resilience to natural hazards. War worked to complicate matters. Traditionally northern warlords of Ethiopia thrived in the business if war and banditry which is only ‘modernised’ by imperial centralisation. Here as elsewhere the first victims of banditry are peasants. So they were in 1973.

In 1984, the world media was again preoccupied with another round of gloom. Famine was back again. The military regime of Mengistu Hailemariam had one vision: build a communist empire. Revolution was what his regime proclaimed as it toppled the dying feudal autocracy. No one asked the cost, and no one cared to measure it. The slogan was: build ‘it’ at any cost. It did not matter if that cost was the loss of millions of lives, or dashed hopes and opportunities. The word ‘building’ seemed positive, but the actions were about destruction of humanity.

The 1984 famine followed a protracted war in different parts of the Ethiopian empire: war with Ogaden, war with Eritrea and Tigray, war within the establishment, the red terror, etc… Mengistu’s atrocities did not end there. The villagisation and resettlement programmes were projects that would be planned by devils. And all Ethiopian regimes have been closer to one. The villagasation programme was a communist experiment in a terribly poor empire. It made everyone equally destitute, and Mengistu learned the lessons long after M. Gorbachev of the then Soviet Union. The poverty that visited upon the rural families by ruthless policies, the environmental damage that malicious resettlement programs engendered, and the ruthless execution of war which led to famine was openly described by the western journalists. They declared the place something nearer to hell on hearth. For millions of people whose voices are crushed and repressed, the place has been a hell for nearly a century.

Now come the year 2000. No one reported in 1973 and 1984 that the magnitude of the problem is as huge as it is today. About eight million people are threatened with famine. The world is now surprised why all this is happening in the lands where only a few years ago the regime’s officials were outspoken in saying their programs help rural communities (where more than 85% of the whole populations live), that food self-sufficiency was achieved.

The current Tigrean ethno-national regime is only nearly a decade long, but the blunders it commits have no proportions or precedents. No one community or national group is at ease with the policies of TPLF/EPRDF regime. Since its coming to power in 1991, all aspects of life are politicised. Its ‘federal’ regional policies are a sham, as The Economist magazine has once noted. Its democratic record is a shambles. Its human rights record are, if anything, worse. Its economic policies are full of contradictions; they are full of favouritism and open disregard of humane change and socio-political balance. Political corruption is rife while the regime’s evaluation and transparency measures focus on political loyalty more than on anything else.

For over a period of years the regime went into war with neighbouring countries using all the pretexts it can manipulate. At one time it fights ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ (e.g. Somalia), a crusader of the 20th century. At another time, it becomes a peacemaker fighting lawlessness outside its jurisdiction (e.g. in Kenya and Somalia). All along, since 1992, it caries out low level wars with organised groups that demand self-determination for their people. Today the people who live in the areas where this demand is strong face famine (e.g. Ogaden and Oromia regions).

Only a few months ago massive fires consumed large forests, the plight of which was not properly addressed. Again the areas of this calamity are the southern areas such as Bale and Borana in Oromia, Qoreleh in Ogaden, Malagawondo and Meme in Sidama, and scores of areas in the west as in Benishangul. The cause of the fires remains suspect but the reasons such as windy, long dry seasons, honey collection and land scramble by local populations is lame. Students demonstrated against the government’s handling of the fire crisis and they faced hostile response. A few students died in Ambo, central region of Oromia. Whatever caused the fire, the destruction of the forests will have huge environmental consequences not only for the areas involved concerned but for the region as a whole. In this regard, one would only appeal to international humanitarian and environmental groups to pursue the matter and pre-empt further destruction.

The problems do not stop at fires and famine. The regime’s policies of inciting ethno-national conflicts has displaced thousands among Gedeo and Guji Oromo communities. The regime encourages artificial divisions within national communities along caste, religious and regional dimensions. In many rural areas, the forced sale of fertiliser to peasant farmers and the method of recouping the sales proceeds, the heavy tax exactions, and several forms of forced contributions to TPLF owned and controlled economic entities made people (rural and urban) exceedingly vulnerable to natural mishaps. Problems were observed in Hadiya, in Gambella and in Wolayta associated with the regime’s policies.

On top of all these, the war with Eritrea which is in its third year is exacting massive burden on populations in Ethiopia. First came the requirement to safeguard ‘territorial’ sovereignty and integrity of the empire. This meant ‘Everything to the War Front’, a familiar tone from the derg era. The incident in Badme is blown out of proportion causing the massacre of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, while the heavy fire in the south did force raise the eyebrows of the officials of the regime. Next came the recruitment for war.

This author anticipated in July 1998, only a few months into the beginning of the TPLF war venture with Eritrea, the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the war. These meetings were conducted in Berlin, Germany, and soon in Stockholm, Sweden, and nearly no one in the international community heeded the voices of the oppressed people then. And now every one seems scrambling for what can be done to relieve the burden of destruction and death primarily imposed by a very bad government. The same war is not only depleting the natural resources but all kinds of resources that may be available in future.

To informed audience, it came to no surprise when a minister of Ethiopia accused foreigners for not responding soon for a disaster his regime has a big hand facilitating the processes that lead up to this scenario. As if begging is a business of prudence and pride, it dictates which routes the aid should come and which should not. It refuses the offer of port services from a warring neighbour for ‘moral ' reasons or for reasons only devils understand.

The difference of the TPLF regime of Ethiopia from the past ones is that this one uses all the pretexts and precedents to pre-empt and trample alternatives. The past rulers of the empire are too proud to tell the world that people under their, otherwise tragic, rule do starve in fact. Menelik had a pretext to hide the great famine behind the war with European fascism. Haile Selassie had to hide fascistic famine with the connivance of the western powers. Mengsitu had a project to finish before accepting his policies were ruthless and contributed to famine. Today’s rulers are the first to tell all is well and sooner than later admit that all is worse. They cannot avoid today’s media exposure which contrasts with the deafening silence of the past. For this, they admit the inevitable and declare bankrupt when everything is out of their handling.

Now the outside world faces a dilemma, as this author does. It is true that politics affects the economic and social conditions in any country. It is true that the buck stops at the benches of officials who impose destructive policies and their sponsors. But the humanitarian disaster does not give much time to spend on the luxury of disputing the rights and wrongs of the regime in power. In the short term, the international community has no alternative other than looking for ways of helping those people whose saddening images appear in the screens which disturbs people’s conscience. Such relief aid may help the dying, but the real help is commitment to humanitarian approach and to help people to help themselves. That is an issue to be addressed today. While relief work is as urgent as ever, the need to see long is by far beneficial to the people affected, to the region, and even to the world. It is only then that gods will have good time free from blame.

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